Dravidian peoples
Encyclopedia
Dravidian peoples is a term used to refer to the diverse groups of people who natively speak languages belonging to the Dravidian language family
. Populations of speakers of around 220 million are found mostly in Southern India
. Other Dravidian people are found in parts of central India
, Sri Lanka
, Bangladesh
and Pakistan
. The most populous Dravidian people are the Telugus
, Tamils
, Kannadigas
and the Malayalis. Smaller Dravidian communities with 1–5 million speakers are the Tuluvas, Gonds and Brahui
.
in his book of comparative Dravidian grammar based on the usage of the Sanskrit word drāvida in the work Tantravārttika by (Zvelebil 1990:xx). The origin of the Sanskrit word , there have been various theories proposed. These theories are about the direction of derivation between and . Lnguists such as Zvelebil assert that the direction is > (ibid. page xxi). The word Dravida may also have its origin from Sanskrit 'drava' – meaning "flowing" or "watery",.
Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
in the book The History and Geography of Human Genes, the Dravidians were preceded in the subcontinent by an Austro-Asiatic people, and were followed by Indo-European
-speaking migrant
s sometime later.
The Munda languages, as a subgroup of the larger Austro-Asiatic language family, are presumed to have arrived in the Indian subcontinent from the east, possibly from the area that is now southwestern China, so any genetic similarity between the present-day speakers of the Munda languages and the "original inhabitants" of India is likely to be due to assimilation of the natives by Southeast Asian immigrants speaking a proto-Munda language.
Some linguists believe that Dravidian-speaking people were spread throughout the Indian subcontinent
before a series of Indo-Aryan migrations. In this view, the early Indus Valley civilization
(Harappa
and Mohenjo Daro) is often identified as having been Dravidian. Cultural and linguistic similarities have been cited by researchers such as Finnish Indologist Asko Parpola as being strong evidence for a proto-Dravidian origin of the ancient Indus Valley civilization.
Some scholars like J. Bloch and M. Witzel believe that the Indo-Aryan moved into an already Dravidian speaking area after the oldest parts of the Rig Veda were already composed. The Brahui
population of Balochistan
has been taken by some as the linguistic equivalent of a relict
population
, perhaps indicating that Dravidian languages
were formerly much more widespread and were supplanted by the incoming Indo-Aryan languages.
state that there is strong evidence that Dravidian influenced Indic
through "shift", that is, native Dravidian speakers learning and adopting Indic languages. states that the most plausible explanation for the presence of Dravidian structural features in Old Indo-Aryan is that the majority of early Old Indo-Aryan speakers had a Dravidian mother tongue which they gradually abandoned. Even though the innovative traits in Indic could be explained by multiple internal explanations, early Dravidian influence is the only explanation that can account for all of the innovations at once – it becomes a question of explanatory parsimony
; moreover, early Dravidian influence accounts for the several of the innovative traits in Indic better than any internal explanation that has been proposed. Zvelebil remarks that "Several scholars have demonstrated that pre-Indo-Aryan and pre-Dravidian bilingualism in India provided conditions for the far-reaching influence of Dravidian on the Indo-Aryan tongues in the spheres of phonology, syntax and vocabulary".
differ in their classification of Dravidians. Classical anthropologists, such as Carleton S. Coon in his 1939 work The Races of Europe
, argued that Ethiopia in Northeast Africa and India in South Asia represented the outermost peripheries of the Caucasoid race. In the same vein, the geneticist L.L. Cavalli-Sforza of Stanford, based on work done in the 1980s, classified Indians as being genetically Caucasian
. Cavalli-Sforza found that Indians are about three times closer to West Europeans than to East Asians. In the 1960s, genetic anthropologist Stanley Marion Garn
considered the entirety of the Indian subcontinent to be a "race" genetically distinct from other populations. More recently, other geneticists, such as Lynn B. Jorde and Stephen P. Wooding, demonstrated that South Indians are genetic intermediaries between Europeans and East Asians. Nevertheless, Indians are classified by modern anthropologists as belonging to one of four different morphological or ethno-racial subtypes, although these generally overlap because of admixture: Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Australoid and Negrito. Dravidians are generally classified as members of the Proto-Australoid or Australoid race. In one study, southern Indian Dravidians clustered genetically with Tamils, a socially endogamous, predominantly Dravidian-speaking Australoid group.
While a number of earlier anthropologists held the view that the Dravidian peoples together were a distinct race
, a small number of genetic studies based on uniparental markers have challenged this view. Some researchers have indicated that both Dravidian and Indo-Aryan speakers are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent; however, this point of view is rejected by most researchers in favor of Indo-Aryan migration
, with racial stratification among Indian populations being distributed along caste lines.
Because of admixture between Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Australoid racial groups, one cannot speak of a biologically separate "Dravidian race" distinct from non-Dravidians on the Indian subcontinent. However, northern Indians have more in common genetically with Central Asian/West Eurasian populations than southern Indian or Dravidian populations, who are more similar to East Asians, further demonstrating that there still exist significant genetic differences between Indo-European- and Dravidian-speaking populations.
In a 2009 study of 132 individuals, 560,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms in 25 different Indian groups were analyzed, providing strong evidence in support of the notion that modern Indians (both Indo-Aryan and Dravidian groups) are a hybrid population descending from two post-Neolithic, genetically divergent populations referred to as the 'Ancestral North Indians' and the 'Ancestral South Indians'. According to the study authors, ASI ancestry, which is represented in pure form by the Negrito populations of the Andamanese archipelago, is significantly correlated with Dravidian speakers, suggesting that ASI may have been a Dravidian-speaking population before mixing with ancestral ANI groups. The intermingling of ANI's and ASI's happened in the same period as the ANI's first appeared, 1,200-3,500 years ago, which roughly coincides with the Indo-Aryan invasion of the Indian subcontinent.
(தமிழ்), Telugu
(తెలుగు), Kannada
(ಕನ್ನಡ) and Malayalam
(മലയാളം). There are three subgroups within the Dravidian language family: North Dravidian, Central Dravidian, and South Dravidian, matching for the most part the corresponding regions in the Indian subcontinent.
Dravidian languages are spoken by more than 200 million people. They appear to be unrelated to languages of other known families like Indo-European
, specifically Indo-Aryan
, which is the other common language family on the Indian subcontinent.
Dravidian grammatical impact on the structure and syntax of Indo-Aryan languages is considered far greater than the Indo-Aryan grammatical impact on Dravidian. Some linguists explain this anomaly by arguing that Middle Indo-Aryan and New Indo-Aryan were built on a Dravidian substratum
.
term Dravida, historically referring to Tamil. It was adopted following the publication of Robert Caldwell
's Comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of languages (1856); a publication that established the language grouping as one of the major language groups of the world. Over seventy-three languages are presently listed as Dravidian. Further, the languages are spread out and cover parts of India, south eastern Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Robert Caldwell
was an Anglican missionary and used the term Dravidian to refer to the people of South India.
Although in modern times speakers of the various Dravidian languages have mainly occupied the southern portion of India, nothing definite is known about the ancient domain of the Dravidian parent speech. It is, however, a well-established and well-supported hypothesis that Dravidian speakers must have been widespread throughout India, including the northwest region.
Dravidian languages
The Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...
. Populations of speakers of around 220 million are found mostly in Southern India
South India
South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
. Other Dravidian people are found in parts of central India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka Tamils (native)
Sri Lankan Tamil people , or Ceylon Tamils also known as Eelam Tamils in Tamil, are a section of Tamil people native to the South Asia island state of Sri Lanka. According to anthropological evidences and archaeological evidences, Sri Lankan Tamils have a very long history in Sri Lankan history and...
, Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
and Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. The most populous Dravidian people are the Telugus
Telugu people
The Telugu people or Telugu Prajalu are an ethnic group of India. They are the native speakers of the Telugu language, the most commonly spoken language in India after Hindi and Bengali...
, Tamils
Tamil people
Tamil people , also called Tamils or Tamilians, are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka. Historic and post 15th century emigrant communities are also found across the world, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Australia, Canada,...
, Kannadigas
Kannadigas
Kannadiga , or Kannadati is a reference to the people who natively speak the Kannada language. Kannadigas are mainly located in the state of Karnataka in India and in the neighboring states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa and Maharashtra...
and the Malayalis. Smaller Dravidian communities with 1–5 million speakers are the Tuluvas, Gonds and Brahui
Brahui people
The Brahui or Brohi are ethnic Baloch group of about 2.2 million people with the majority found in Kalat, Baluchistan, Pakistan, but they are also found in smaller numbers in neighboring Afghanistan and Iran. The Brahuis are almost entirely Sunni Muslims.-Origins:The ethnonym "Brahui" is a very...
.
Etymology
The English word Dravidian was first employed by Robert CaldwellRobert Caldwell
Bishop Robert Caldwell was an Evangelist missionary and linguist, who academically established the Dravidian family of languages. He served as Assistant Bishop of Tirunelveli from 1877. He was described in The Hindu as a 'pioneering champion of the downtrodden' and an 'avant-garde social reformer'...
in his book of comparative Dravidian grammar based on the usage of the Sanskrit word drāvida in the work Tantravārttika by (Zvelebil 1990:xx). The origin of the Sanskrit word , there have been various theories proposed. These theories are about the direction of derivation between and . Lnguists such as Zvelebil assert that the direction is > (ibid. page xxi). The word Dravida may also have its origin from Sanskrit 'drava' – meaning "flowing" or "watery",.
Origins
Origins of Dravidian people are informed by various theories proposed by linguists, anthropologists, geneticist and historians. According to geneticistGeneticist
A geneticist is a biologist who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a researcher or lecturer. Some geneticists perform experiments and analyze data to interpret the inheritance of skills. A geneticist is also a Consultant or...
Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza is an Italian population geneticist born in Genoa, who has been a professor at Stanford University since 1970 .-Books:...
in the book The History and Geography of Human Genes, the Dravidians were preceded in the subcontinent by an Austro-Asiatic people, and were followed by Indo-European
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
-speaking migrant
Human migration
Human migration is physical movement by humans from one area to another, sometimes over long distances or in large groups. Historically this movement was nomadic, often causing significant conflict with the indigenous population and their displacement or cultural assimilation. Only a few nomadic...
s sometime later.
The Munda languages, as a subgroup of the larger Austro-Asiatic language family, are presumed to have arrived in the Indian subcontinent from the east, possibly from the area that is now southwestern China, so any genetic similarity between the present-day speakers of the Munda languages and the "original inhabitants" of India is likely to be due to assimilation of the natives by Southeast Asian immigrants speaking a proto-Munda language.
Some linguists believe that Dravidian-speaking people were spread throughout the Indian subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
before a series of Indo-Aryan migrations. In this view, the early Indus Valley civilization
Indus Valley Civilization
The Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that was located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, consisting of what is now mainly modern-day Pakistan and northwest India...
(Harappa
Harappa
Harappa is an archaeological site in Punjab, northeast Pakistan, about west of Sahiwal. The site takes its name from a modern village located near the former course of the Ravi River. The current village of Harappa is from the ancient site. Although modern Harappa has a train station left from...
and Mohenjo Daro) is often identified as having been Dravidian. Cultural and linguistic similarities have been cited by researchers such as Finnish Indologist Asko Parpola as being strong evidence for a proto-Dravidian origin of the ancient Indus Valley civilization.
Some scholars like J. Bloch and M. Witzel believe that the Indo-Aryan moved into an already Dravidian speaking area after the oldest parts of the Rig Veda were already composed. The Brahui
Brahui people
The Brahui or Brohi are ethnic Baloch group of about 2.2 million people with the majority found in Kalat, Baluchistan, Pakistan, but they are also found in smaller numbers in neighboring Afghanistan and Iran. The Brahuis are almost entirely Sunni Muslims.-Origins:The ethnonym "Brahui" is a very...
population of Balochistan
Balochistan (Pakistan)
Balochistan is one of the four provinces or federating units of Pakistan. With an area of 134,051 mi2 or , it is the largest province of Pakistan, constituting approximately 44% of the total land mass of Pakistan. According to the 1998 population census, Balochistan had a population of...
has been taken by some as the linguistic equivalent of a relict
Relict
A relict is a surviving remnant of a natural phenomenon.* In biology a relict is an organism that at an earlier time was abundant in a large area but now occurs at only one or a few small areas....
population
Population
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
, perhaps indicating that Dravidian languages
Dravidian languages
The Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...
were formerly much more widespread and were supplanted by the incoming Indo-Aryan languages.
state that there is strong evidence that Dravidian influenced Indic
Indic
Indic can refer to:* Indo-Aryan languages* Indic scripts* Related to the Indian Subcontinent* of or related to India ; see Indica...
through "shift", that is, native Dravidian speakers learning and adopting Indic languages. states that the most plausible explanation for the presence of Dravidian structural features in Old Indo-Aryan is that the majority of early Old Indo-Aryan speakers had a Dravidian mother tongue which they gradually abandoned. Even though the innovative traits in Indic could be explained by multiple internal explanations, early Dravidian influence is the only explanation that can account for all of the innovations at once – it becomes a question of explanatory parsimony
Occam's razor
Occam's razor, also known as Ockham's razor, and sometimes expressed in Latin as lex parsimoniae , is a principle that generally recommends from among competing hypotheses selecting the one that makes the fewest new assumptions.-Overview:The principle is often summarized as "simpler explanations...
; moreover, early Dravidian influence accounts for the several of the innovative traits in Indic better than any internal explanation that has been proposed. Zvelebil remarks that "Several scholars have demonstrated that pre-Indo-Aryan and pre-Dravidian bilingualism in India provided conditions for the far-reaching influence of Dravidian on the Indo-Aryan tongues in the spheres of phonology, syntax and vocabulary".
Genetic anthropology
Genetic views on raceGenetic views on race
The relationship between race and genetics has relevance for the ongoing controversies regarding race.Ongoing genetic research have investigated how ancestral human populations migrated in the ancestral geographic environment into different geographic areas...
differ in their classification of Dravidians. Classical anthropologists, such as Carleton S. Coon in his 1939 work The Races of Europe
The Races of Europe
The Races of Europe is the title of two anthropological publications*The Races of Europe by William Z. Ripley*The Races of Europe by Carleton S. Coon...
, argued that Ethiopia in Northeast Africa and India in South Asia represented the outermost peripheries of the Caucasoid race. In the same vein, the geneticist L.L. Cavalli-Sforza of Stanford, based on work done in the 1980s, classified Indians as being genetically Caucasian
Caucasian race
The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...
. Cavalli-Sforza found that Indians are about three times closer to West Europeans than to East Asians. In the 1960s, genetic anthropologist Stanley Marion Garn
Stanley Marion Garn
Stanley Marion Garn Ph.D. was a professor of physical anthropology. He was a professor of anthropology at the College for Literature, Science and Arts and a Professor of Nutrition at the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan...
considered the entirety of the Indian subcontinent to be a "race" genetically distinct from other populations. More recently, other geneticists, such as Lynn B. Jorde and Stephen P. Wooding, demonstrated that South Indians are genetic intermediaries between Europeans and East Asians. Nevertheless, Indians are classified by modern anthropologists as belonging to one of four different morphological or ethno-racial subtypes, although these generally overlap because of admixture: Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Australoid and Negrito. Dravidians are generally classified as members of the Proto-Australoid or Australoid race. In one study, southern Indian Dravidians clustered genetically with Tamils, a socially endogamous, predominantly Dravidian-speaking Australoid group.
While a number of earlier anthropologists held the view that the Dravidian peoples together were a distinct race
Historical definitions of races in India
Various attempts have been made, under the British Raj and since, to classify the population of India according to a racial typology. After the independence, in pursuance of the Government's policy to discourage community distinctions based on race, the 1951 Census of India did away with racial...
, a small number of genetic studies based on uniparental markers have challenged this view. Some researchers have indicated that both Dravidian and Indo-Aryan speakers are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent; however, this point of view is rejected by most researchers in favor of Indo-Aryan migration
Indo-Aryan migration
Models of the Indo-Aryan migration discuss scenarios of prehistoric migrations of the proto-Indo-Aryans to their historically attested areas of settlement in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent...
, with racial stratification among Indian populations being distributed along caste lines.
Because of admixture between Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Australoid racial groups, one cannot speak of a biologically separate "Dravidian race" distinct from non-Dravidians on the Indian subcontinent. However, northern Indians have more in common genetically with Central Asian/West Eurasian populations than southern Indian or Dravidian populations, who are more similar to East Asians, further demonstrating that there still exist significant genetic differences between Indo-European- and Dravidian-speaking populations.
In a 2009 study of 132 individuals, 560,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms in 25 different Indian groups were analyzed, providing strong evidence in support of the notion that modern Indians (both Indo-Aryan and Dravidian groups) are a hybrid population descending from two post-Neolithic, genetically divergent populations referred to as the 'Ancestral North Indians' and the 'Ancestral South Indians'. According to the study authors, ASI ancestry, which is represented in pure form by the Negrito populations of the Andamanese archipelago, is significantly correlated with Dravidian speakers, suggesting that ASI may have been a Dravidian-speaking population before mixing with ancestral ANI groups. The intermingling of ANI's and ASI's happened in the same period as the ANI's first appeared, 1,200-3,500 years ago, which roughly coincides with the Indo-Aryan invasion of the Indian subcontinent.
Language
The best-known Dravidian languages are TamilTamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
(தமிழ்), Telugu
Telugu language
Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...
(తెలుగు), Kannada
Kannada language
Kannada or , is a language spoken in India predominantly in the state of Karnataka. Kannada, whose native speakers are called Kannadigas and number roughly 50 million, is one of the 30 most spoken languages in the world...
(ಕನ್ನಡ) and Malayalam
Malayalam language
Malayalam , is one of the four major Dravidian languages of southern India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India with official language status in the state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry. It is spoken by 35.9 million people...
(മലയാളം). There are three subgroups within the Dravidian language family: North Dravidian, Central Dravidian, and South Dravidian, matching for the most part the corresponding regions in the Indian subcontinent.
Dravidian languages are spoken by more than 200 million people. They appear to be unrelated to languages of other known families like Indo-European
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
, specifically Indo-Aryan
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...
, which is the other common language family on the Indian subcontinent.
Dravidian grammatical impact on the structure and syntax of Indo-Aryan languages is considered far greater than the Indo-Aryan grammatical impact on Dravidian. Some linguists explain this anomaly by arguing that Middle Indo-Aryan and New Indo-Aryan were built on a Dravidian substratum
Substratum
In linguistics, a stratum or strate is a language that influences, or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum is a language which has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum is the language that has higher power or prestige. Both substratum and superstratum...
.
Concept of the Dravidian people
The term Dravidian is taken from the SanskritSanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
term Dravida, historically referring to Tamil. It was adopted following the publication of Robert Caldwell
Robert Caldwell
Bishop Robert Caldwell was an Evangelist missionary and linguist, who academically established the Dravidian family of languages. He served as Assistant Bishop of Tirunelveli from 1877. He was described in The Hindu as a 'pioneering champion of the downtrodden' and an 'avant-garde social reformer'...
's Comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of languages (1856); a publication that established the language grouping as one of the major language groups of the world. Over seventy-three languages are presently listed as Dravidian. Further, the languages are spread out and cover parts of India, south eastern Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Robert Caldwell
Robert Caldwell
Bishop Robert Caldwell was an Evangelist missionary and linguist, who academically established the Dravidian family of languages. He served as Assistant Bishop of Tirunelveli from 1877. He was described in The Hindu as a 'pioneering champion of the downtrodden' and an 'avant-garde social reformer'...
was an Anglican missionary and used the term Dravidian to refer to the people of South India.
Although in modern times speakers of the various Dravidian languages have mainly occupied the southern portion of India, nothing definite is known about the ancient domain of the Dravidian parent speech. It is, however, a well-established and well-supported hypothesis that Dravidian speakers must have been widespread throughout India, including the northwest region.
List of Dravidian peoples
- BhilBhilBhils are primarily an Adivasi people of Central India. Bhils are also settled in the Tharparkar District of Sindh, Pakistan. They speak the Bhil languages, a subgroup of the Western Zone of the Indo-Aryan languages....
: Mostly found in the Tharparkar district of Sindh in Pakistan - BondaBonda PeopleThe Bonda are an ancient tribe of people numbering approximately 5000 who live in the isolated hill regions of the Malkangiri district of southwesternmost Orissa, India, near the junction of the three states of Orissa, Chhattisgarh, and Andhra Pradesh...
: People belonging to the Munda subgroup, mostly found in the isolated hill regions of the Malkangiri district of southwesternmost Orissa, India, near the junction of the three states of Orissa, Chhattisgarh, and Andhra Pradesh. - Brahui peopleBrahui peopleThe Brahui or Brohi are ethnic Baloch group of about 2.2 million people with the majority found in Kalat, Baluchistan, Pakistan, but they are also found in smaller numbers in neighboring Afghanistan and Iran. The Brahuis are almost entirely Sunni Muslims.-Origins:The ethnonym "Brahui" is a very...
: People belonging to the north-Dravidian subgroup, mostly found in the BalochistanBalochistan (Pakistan)Balochistan is one of the four provinces or federating units of Pakistan. With an area of 134,051 mi2 or , it is the largest province of Pakistan, constituting approximately 44% of the total land mass of Pakistan. According to the 1998 population census, Balochistan had a population of...
province of PakistanPakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. - GondGondi peopleThe Gondi, Goindi or Gond people are people in central India, spread over the states of Madhya Pradesh, eastern Maharashtra , Chhattisgarh, northern Andhra Pradesh, and Western Orissa. With over four million people, they are the largest tribe in Central India.The Gondi language is related to...
people: A prominent group of Dravidian-speaking tribalTribeA tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.Many anthropologists use the term tribal society to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups .Some theorists...
people inhabiting the central region of India. - Kannadiga: People belonging to the south-Dravidian subgroup. Mostly found in KarnatakaKarnatakaKarnataka , the land of the Kannadigas, is a state in South West India. It was created on 1 November 1956, with the passing of the States Reorganisation Act and this day is annually celebrated as Karnataka Rajyotsava...
and parts of northern KeralaKeralaor Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
and parts of southern MaharashtraMaharashtraMaharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...
. - KhondsKhondsKhonds, or Kandhs are an aboriginal tribe of India, inhabiting the tributary states of Orissa and Srikakulam, in the Visakhapatnam districts of Andhra Pradesh. Their main divisions are into Kutia, or hill Khonds and plain-dwelling Khonds; the landowners are known as Raj Khonds. They are hunter...
/KondhaKondhaThe Kondha are indigenous tribal groups of India. They live in Orissa, a state in Eastern India. Their highest concentration is found in the blocks of Rayagada, Kashipur, Kalyansinghpur, Bissamcuttack and Muniguda....
: Tribal people who speak the Dravidian Kui languageKui language (Dravidian)Kui is a Central-Dravidian language spoken by the Khonds. It is mostly spoken in Orissa, and written in the Oriya script. With 641,662 registered native speakers, it figures at rank 29 in the 1991 Indian census.Distinct but closely related are the Gondi, Konda and Kuvi languages.-Phonology:...
. Mostly found in the eastern Indian states of OrissaOrissaOrissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...
and Andhra PradeshAndhra PradeshAndhra Pradesh , is one of the 28 states of India, situated on the southeastern coast of India. It is India's fourth largest state by area and fifth largest by population. Its capital and largest city by population is Hyderabad.The total GDP of Andhra Pradesh is $100 billion and is ranked third...
. - Kodavas : People belonging to the south-Dravidian subgroup, found in KarnatakaKarnatakaKarnataka , the land of the Kannadigas, is a state in South West India. It was created on 1 November 1956, with the passing of the States Reorganisation Act and this day is annually celebrated as Karnataka Rajyotsava...
and parts of northern KeralaKeralaor Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
who speak the Kodava language. - Kurukh: People belonging to the north-Dravidian subgroup. Found in India and Bangladesh. It is the only Dravidian language indigenous in Bangladesh.
- MalayaliMalayaliMalayali is the term used to refer to the native speakers of Malayalam, originating from the Indian state of Kerala...
: People belonging to the south-Dravidian subgroup found primarily in KeralaKeralaor Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
. - TamilTamil peopleTamil people , also called Tamils or Tamilians, are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka. Historic and post 15th century emigrant communities are also found across the world, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Australia, Canada,...
: These people belong to south-Dravidian linguistic subgroup. Mostly found in Tamil NaduTamil NaduTamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
, SingaporeSingaporeSingapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, Andaman and Nicobar, Sri LankaSri LankaSri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
, Malaysia and parts of KeralaKeralaor Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
, Andhra PradeshAndhra PradeshAndhra Pradesh , is one of the 28 states of India, situated on the southeastern coast of India. It is India's fourth largest state by area and fifth largest by population. Its capital and largest city by population is Hyderabad.The total GDP of Andhra Pradesh is $100 billion and is ranked third...
, KarnatakaKarnatakaKarnataka , the land of the Kannadigas, is a state in South West India. It was created on 1 November 1956, with the passing of the States Reorganisation Act and this day is annually celebrated as Karnataka Rajyotsava...
and South AfricaSouth AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. - TelugusTelugu peopleThe Telugu people or Telugu Prajalu are an ethnic group of India. They are the native speakers of the Telugu language, the most commonly spoken language in India after Hindi and Bengali...
: These people belong to south-Dravidian subgroup (formerly classified with the Central Dravidian but now more specifically in the South Dravidian II or South Central Dravidian inner branch of the South Dravidian (Krishnamurti 2003:p19)). Mostly found in Andhra PradeshAndhra PradeshAndhra Pradesh , is one of the 28 states of India, situated on the southeastern coast of India. It is India's fourth largest state by area and fifth largest by population. Its capital and largest city by population is Hyderabad.The total GDP of Andhra Pradesh is $100 billion and is ranked third...
also in OrissaOrissaOrissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...
, Tamil NaduTamil NaduTamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
and KarnatakaKarnatakaKarnataka , the land of the Kannadigas, is a state in South West India. It was created on 1 November 1956, with the passing of the States Reorganisation Act and this day is annually celebrated as Karnataka Rajyotsava...
. - TuluvaTuluvaThe Tuluva -Geographic Distribution :Though most of the Tuluva population is found in the Tulu Nadu region, migrant poplulations are found the world over. In recent times, the first period of migration started at the beginning of the 20th century to places such as Mumbai and Chennai and other...
s: People belonging to the south Dravidian subgroup, found in coastal Karnataka and northern Kerala, alternatively named Tulu NaduTulu NaduTulu Nadu is a Tulu-speaking region spread over to parts of present Karnataka and Kerala States of India. It consists of the Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts of Karnataka and the northern parts of the Kasaragod district of Kerala up to the Payaswini River...
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See also
- Dravidian languagesDravidian languagesThe Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...
- Racial groups of India
- Munda peopleMunda peopleThe Munda are tribal people of the Chota Nagpur Plateau region.They are found across Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Assam states of India, and into parts of Bangladesh...
- Tuluvas
- Gonds
- BrahuiBrahuiThe name Brahui may refer to:*The Brahui language*The Brahui people...
- Pondicherry
- Afro Asians (African Asians)Afro Asians (African Asians)Afro-Asians are African communities have been living in India and the Indian subcontinent for several hundred years and have settled in countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India....
- Ancient Dravidian cultureAncient Dravidian cultureThe culture of the Dravidian peoples has historically influenced the less cultured invading Aryans.The Dravidians arrived from ancient Mesopotamia more than nine thousand years ago.Before the Dravidians arrived there were indigenous people in India.The Dravidians established The Mergargh...
- Dravidian UniversityDravidian UniversityThe Dravidian University, Kuppam, Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh, India was founded on October 20, 1997 by the Government of Andhra Pradesh, with the initial support extended by the governments of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala for an integrated development of Dravidian...
(dedicated to research and learning of Dravidian languages) - South IndiaSouth IndiaSouth India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
- Economy of South IndiaEconomy of South IndiaThe Economy of South India is largely agrarian, dependent on monsoons, as are most people in India. Some of the main crops cultivated in South India include rice, sorghum, and ragi. South India was and still is the "promised land" as far as spice cultivation is concerned. Areca, coffee, pepper,...